Two months ago, I thought I had breast cancer. For three or four days, I felt a deep pain at the bottom of my right breast. I could not detect anything, but felt a surge of blind panic, particularly since the sensation was getting worse every day.

Before I called the doctor, I decided I should take a look. It's hard for anything to hide under my small set, but this managed it. Just out of my view on the right underside was a angry red curve, left there by the wire of my $10, two-year-old Target underwire bra.

Ladies, you know which bra this is. Yours might be a better brand than mine, but it's almost certainly beige.

The cups are smooth, with no pretty lace to bulge up from underneath close-fitting shirts. It's boring as hell, absent even a pretense of sexiness. Even worse, although most women wear beige bras more than any other color, underwear designers must surely be men because beige panties are almost nonexistent. So not only is the bra dull, it's unenlivened even a smidge by matching panties.

Nevertheless, we wear this unremarkable but depressingly practical underthing to bits. As I had done to mine. It had served its purpose nobly, but it was cheap, wearing thin, and telling me so in very direct terms.

Had I not just read "What Not to Wear," I'd have gone straight to Target for a newer version of my weary original.

Once in my life, I'd worn nothing but Victoria's Secret, but those were in the days when I had boyfriends. When the underthings were part of the package, a vital and appreciated component of the relationships.

If one of those currently were in my life, my drawers would be overflowing with lace, delicate straps and pastel-colored ribbons. But until I got to the fourth date - hopefully the fourth - with someone I really liked, the underwear needed no frills. Since I hadn't gotten past one in many moons, there seemed no need for such things.

But "What Not to Wear" advised a woman to "invest" in good lingerie. It is, they say, the foundation for every other piece of clothing that follows.

So, off I went to Victoria's Secret.

And out I came with a $49 plain beige bra.

But don't let the visual description fool you. This is not the Target bra with a different label.

It's an IPEX.

Victoria's Secret has been blasting the IPEX across its glossy catalogue pages for at least a year now. The model is on a stage, her body backlit, long hair flying in the fans tucked just out of the camera frame's sight. The shot is taken up, so her legs are eternal, her stomach flat and defined, her entire body tanned and shining with some subtle oil.

It's a very sexy shot, until you look at the bra. Which is boring. Apparently a whole lotta hoopla for nothing.

I was never tempted to buy, or even look at, an IPEX.

But then I tried it on.

I felt myself get taller, my hair grow longer, the wind began blowing through the dressing room. OK, well not quite, but there was a bit of a draft, that I know.

What I did notice was the fit, which was perfect. And the seams, which were all but gone. And that it lifted, enough to enhance but not enough to outright lie. I put my shirt on over it, and it looked ... different. The shirt was still form fitting as it was meant to be, but with no signs of strain across my chest.

A few months ago, my son had stood behind me as I sat on the floor and asked what were the two bumps on the back of my shirt. They were, I told him, part of my bra. "Oh," he said, "I always thought those were two really bit zits."

Those bumps were gone.

The "What Not to Wear" women were spot on.

I wanted one in every color. But at $49, I decided to buy one for now and wait for a sale.

Since then, I've worn my IPEX almost every day. Even more often than its predecessor. Some days, I leave it in the drawer only because I think it deserves a break, and I feel a little bothered by my unwillingness to give it up. But most days, I give in, with a secret delight I wish I could quell.

So where before I was uncomfortably bored with my lingerie, now I am bored in delicious comfort.

I can endure ho-hum beige for six more weeks, however, when Victoria's Secret launches its semi-annual sale. Maybe by then, they'll take their revolutionary line one more bold step and introduce IPEX panties. In beige.